The development of techniques of medically assisted procreation (hereinafter MAP) – above all the ability to form an embryo outside a woman’s body and surrogacy procedures – has generated heated international debate involving doctors, geneticists, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, bioethicists, feminists, and legal experts. This long list of protagonists might yet grow as MAP affects one of the two most important symbolic aspects of human life: the beginning and the end. Reflecting on the issue of birth (the beginning of life) means asking questions about sexuality and conception which relate directly to the female body. This article highlights the decisive impact of MAP techniques on the new social imaginaries of the body, sexuality, and conception. The new symbols and myths which emerge tell of sexless, de-eroticised, and empty male and female bodies: the horizon of the imaginary now features the ‘androgynous’ woman and the ‘gynandrous’ man, while conception occurs in a relational vacuum.
{"title":"Woman, Body, Conception: Unveiling the Arcana","authors":"P. D. Nicola","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I2.453]","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I2.453]","url":null,"abstract":"The development of techniques of medically assisted procreation (hereinafter MAP) – above all the ability to form an embryo outside a woman’s body and surrogacy procedures – has generated heated international debate involving doctors, geneticists, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, bioethicists, feminists, and legal experts. This long list of protagonists might yet grow as MAP affects one of the two most important symbolic aspects of human life: the beginning and the end. Reflecting on the issue of birth (the beginning of life) means asking questions about sexuality and conception which relate directly to the female body. This article highlights the decisive impact of MAP techniques on the new social imaginaries of the body, sexuality, and conception. The new symbols and myths which emerge tell of sexless, de-eroticised, and empty male and female bodies: the horizon of the imaginary now features the ‘androgynous’ woman and the ‘gynandrous’ man, while conception occurs in a relational vacuum.","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"531-550"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44403416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Unfolding of the Simulacrum","authors":"D. Secondulfo","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I2.456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I2.456","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"565"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44816692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scientific progress in the medical field has contributed to the realisation of becoming parents by people who have previously been naturally excluded from procreation and parenthood, such as older, non-fertile, and homosexual persons and couples. However, depending on specific national regulations, possible pathways to becoming parents are different and often reserved only for some categories of people. This is the case, for example, in Italy, where it is more difficult for homosexual people to have a family than it is for others, since national legislation prohibits homosexuals from using any form of third-party reproduction. Consequently, many Italian same-sex couples turn to agencies abroad to realise their desire to have children, giving rise to transnational practices of family formation. The COVID-19 pandemic and severe lockdown policies have exacerbated some critical aspects of this transnational system of access to parenting. To fight the spread of coronavirus, national governments have placed limits on mobility and, consequently, also placed limits on transnational practices and trajectories of family formation. The specific aim of this paper is to provide insights into the experiences of some gay Italian fathers-to-be who have been blocked in their transnational family formation projects because of coronavirus lockdown measures. The focus lies on how these men reacted to feeling “stuck” and seeing their plans of receiving and/or bringing home their children suddenly foiled by the lockdown measures. Particular attention is paid to how these men coped with exacerbated challenges in the transnational practices of reproduction and family formation.
{"title":"Stuck under the Rainbow? Gay Parents' Experiences with Transnational Surrogacy and Family Formation in Times of COVID-19 Lockdown","authors":"Salvatore Monaco, U. Nothdurfter","doi":"10.13136/isr.v11i2.451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/isr.v11i2.451","url":null,"abstract":"Scientific progress in the medical field has contributed to the realisation of becoming parents by people who have previously been naturally excluded from procreation and parenthood, such as older, non-fertile, and homosexual persons and couples. However, depending on specific national regulations, possible pathways to becoming parents are different and often reserved only for some categories of people. This is the case, for example, in Italy, where it is more difficult for homosexual people to have a family than it is for others, since national legislation prohibits homosexuals from using any form of third-party reproduction. Consequently, many Italian same-sex couples turn to agencies abroad to realise their desire to have children, giving rise to transnational practices of family formation. The COVID-19 pandemic and severe lockdown policies have exacerbated some critical aspects of this transnational system of access to parenting. To fight the spread of coronavirus, national governments have placed limits on mobility and, consequently, also placed limits on transnational practices and trajectories of family formation. The specific aim of this paper is to provide insights into the experiences of some gay Italian fathers-to-be who have been blocked in their transnational family formation projects because of coronavirus lockdown measures. The focus lies on how these men reacted to feeling “stuck” and seeing their plans of receiving and/or bringing home their children suddenly foiled by the lockdown measures. Particular attention is paid to how these men coped with exacerbated challenges in the transnational practices of reproduction and family formation.","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"509-529"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44649071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Practically all studies on household survey sampling have given some space to the different dwelling selection processes. Since most surveys are administered to ONE person within each household, reselection is necessary within those households where there are two or more people. This study compares two within-household selection methods: the last-birthday method and the Kish method. The hypothesis is that the last-birthday method represents the population better than Kish method. It complements the “classic” representation of sex and age distribution with the representation of educational attainment, labor force participation rates, employment and unemployment by sex. The data from the European Social Survey (8 th wave) shown point toward accepting this hypothesis. In spite of the last-birthday method producing a greater selection of women, the differences in educational level and labor force participation are smaller than with the Kish method.
{"title":"Is the Kish Household Sampling Method Better than the Birthday Method","authors":"Vidal Díaz de Rada","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I2.450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I2.450","url":null,"abstract":"Practically all studies on household survey sampling have given some space to the different dwelling selection processes. Since most surveys are administered to ONE person within each household, reselection is necessary within those households where there are two or more people. This study compares two within-household selection methods: the last-birthday method and the Kish method. The hypothesis is that the last-birthday method represents the population better than Kish method. It complements the “classic” representation of sex and age distribution with the representation of educational attainment, labor force participation rates, employment and unemployment by sex. The data from the European Social Survey (8 th wave) shown point toward accepting this hypothesis. In spite of the last-birthday method producing a greater selection of women, the differences in educational level and labor force participation are smaller than with the Kish method.","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"485"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45685990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The paper aims to suggest a simple model for the interpretation of digital traces as a source of data in Social Science research. Digital traces are very interesting because in the sociological tradition there is no extensive use of traces: the great part of sociological methods prefer direct and indirect strategies of data collections. But today digital traces are important because the technological environment of the Digital Society produces a great number of digital traces that are an important source of data. While in sociology there is a little debate in the use of traces, in the Social Sciences and humanities there are several traditions in the interpretation of trace, and we focus our attention on the most interesting: the ethnomethodology, the school of suspicion, the interpretive anthropology, the evidential paradigm. What these traditions have in common is their interest in abductive reasoning or the way to use partial information to build probabilistic knowledge, a typical strategy of hunters, detectives, and physicians, archetypes of the social theory of traces. Then we propose a model for the interpretation of digital traces that is inspired by the cultural diamond of Wendy Griswold and for this reason we call it the digital traces’ diamond. Then we use a series of case study to describe how the proposed model works and how can be useful for the use of digital traces as a source of data.
{"title":"The Digital Traces’ Diamond. A Proposal to Put Together a Quantitative Approach, Interpretive Methods, and Computational Tools","authors":"Davide Bennato","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.432","url":null,"abstract":"The paper aims to suggest a simple model for the interpretation of digital traces as a source of data in Social Science research. Digital traces are very interesting because in the sociological tradition there is no extensive use of traces: the great part of sociological methods prefer direct and indirect strategies of data collections. But today digital traces are important because the technological environment of the Digital Society produces a great number of digital traces that are an important source of data. While in sociology there is a little debate in the use of traces, in the Social Sciences and humanities there are several traditions in the interpretation of trace, and we focus our attention on the most interesting: the ethnomethodology, the school of suspicion, the interpretive anthropology, the evidential paradigm. What these traditions have in common is their interest in abductive reasoning or the way to use partial information to build probabilistic knowledge, a typical strategy of hunters, detectives, and physicians, archetypes of the social theory of traces. Then we propose a model for the interpretation of digital traces that is inspired by the cultural diamond of Wendy Griswold and for this reason we call it the digital traces’ diamond. Then we use a series of case study to describe how the proposed model works and how can be useful for the use of digital traces as a source of data.","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"207-224"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43420146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The study reported in this paper aims to theoretically and empirically explore computational propaganda (CP) – a systematic process of political misinformation perpetrated on social networking platforms by automated agents with the aim of increasing support for specific political stances – focusing in particular on the factors determining its potential effectiveness. The claim maintained throughout this paper is that, among the possible factors determining this effectiveness, a pivotal one is represented by the design of CP messages themselves. Indeed, the hypothesis underlying this investigation is that the way CP content is created and presented is not casual, but deliberately designed to embed in it a set of persuasion strategies aimed at triggering a specific cognitive deliberation: considering misinformation as factual. Drawing from the Dual Process Theory of Cognition, the argument proposed is that info-cues contained in CP messages play a pivotal role in determining the likelihood of CP effectiveness. To test this hypothesis, a two-step analysis characterized by a mixed-method strategy has been implemented. To identify and collect CP messages, a machine learning algorithm able to perform bot-detection has been developed, while to analyze the content of those messages, a combination of qualitative and quantitative text analysis techniques has been employed. Lastly, preliminary results are presented and future work discussed.
{"title":"Tricked into Supporting: A Study on Computational Propaganda Persuasion Strategies","authors":"Valentina Nerino","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.438","url":null,"abstract":"The study reported in this paper aims to theoretically and empirically explore computational propaganda (CP) – a systematic process of political misinformation perpetrated on social networking platforms by automated agents with the aim of increasing support for specific political stances – focusing in particular on the factors determining its potential effectiveness. The claim maintained throughout this paper is that, among the possible factors determining this effectiveness, a pivotal one is represented by the design of CP messages themselves. Indeed, the hypothesis underlying this investigation is that the way CP content is created and presented is not casual, but deliberately designed to embed in it a set of persuasion strategies aimed at triggering a specific cognitive deliberation: considering misinformation as factual. Drawing from the Dual Process Theory of Cognition, the argument proposed is that info-cues contained in CP messages play a pivotal role in determining the likelihood of CP effectiveness. To test this hypothesis, a two-step analysis characterized by a mixed-method strategy has been implemented. To identify and collect CP messages, a machine learning algorithm able to perform bot-detection has been developed, while to analyze the content of those messages, a combination of qualitative and quantitative text analysis techniques has been employed. Lastly, preliminary results are presented and future work discussed.","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"343"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43505453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Digital ethnography can be defined as a contemporary form of ethnography which considers online social spaces of discussion following the advances in data transmission technology. In the last few years, various attempts of considering online spaces in ethnographic research have been made producing different styles of online ethnography, each identified by a different label. This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the topic to map the practice of digital ethnography. The research process followed four key steps: search, selection, analysis and synthesis. In the search phase, we searched contributions iteratively in Web of Science and Scopus by using a variety of keywords corresponding to the different labels used to refer to digital ethnography. In the selection phase, we adopted a selective stance that aims to provide a critical review of the existing research and practices in the context of digital ethnography. In the analysis phase, we carried out a content analysis of the papers combining deductive and inductive coding. The synthesis phase involves a process of typology development to pragmatically reduce and systematize an extensive set of features and digital ethnography practices. Basing on the type of data collected (Small vs Big Data) and the type of fieldwork (meta or contextual field), we detected four types of ethnographic research: social media ethnography , contextual digital ethnography , meta digital ethnography , cross-media ethnography .
数字民族志可以被定义为一种当代形式的民族志，它考虑了随着数据传输技术的进步而讨论的在线社会空间。在过去的几年里，在民族志研究中考虑在线空间的各种尝试已经产生了不同风格的在线民族志，每种风格都有不同的标签。本文旨在对该主题进行系统的回顾，以绘制数字民族志的实践。研究过程包括四个关键步骤:搜索、选择、分析和综合。在检索阶段，我们在Web of Science和Scopus中迭代检索贡献，使用与数字人种志不同标签对应的各种关键词。在选择阶段，我们采取了一种选择性的立场，旨在对数字人种学背景下的现有研究和实践进行批判性的回顾。在分析阶段，我们结合演绎编码和归纳编码对论文进行了内容分析。综合阶段包括类型学发展的过程，以务实地减少和系统化一套广泛的特征和数字人种学实践。根据收集的数据类型(小数据vs大数据)和田野调查类型(元或情境场)，我们发现了四种类型的民族志研究:社交媒体民族志、情境数字民族志、元数字民族志、跨媒体民族志。
{"title":"Digital Ethnography: A Systematic Literature Review","authors":"Angela Delli Paoli, Valentina D’Auria","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.434","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.434","url":null,"abstract":"Digital ethnography can be defined as a contemporary form of ethnography which considers online social spaces of discussion following the advances in data transmission technology. In the last few years, various attempts of considering online spaces in ethnographic research have been made producing different styles of online ethnography, each identified by a different label. This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the topic to map the practice of digital ethnography. The research process followed four key steps: search, selection, analysis and synthesis. In the search phase, we searched contributions iteratively in Web of Science and Scopus by using a variety of keywords corresponding to the different labels used to refer to digital ethnography. In the selection phase, we adopted a selective stance that aims to provide a critical review of the existing research and practices in the context of digital ethnography. In the analysis phase, we carried out a content analysis of the papers combining deductive and inductive coding. The synthesis phase involves a process of typology development to pragmatically reduce and systematize an extensive set of features and digital ethnography practices. Basing on the type of data collected (Small vs Big Data) and the type of fieldwork (meta or contextual field), we detected four types of ethnographic research: social media ethnography , contextual digital ethnography , meta digital ethnography , cross-media ethnography .","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"243"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44437035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Especially after the social media curtailing brought about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it has become increasingly difficult to do social media research by using digital methods as well as following the medium . This condition brings in new methodological and ethical challenges. This article proposes some methodological strategies to ‘repurpose’ digital methods in a post-API research environment. The discussion draws on three case studies: 1) studying Instagram stories: the scraping dilemma; 2) studying smartphone in everyday contexts: researching digital environments not connected to APIs; 3) studying fake news on Twitter: dealing with increasingly useless APIs data. For each case study methodological and ethical implications are examined. In conclusion, the article suggests that a possible viable strategy to repurpose digital methods in a post-API era is to follow the natives (along with the medium ), that is, to take advantage of the natively digital methods through which social media users manage their own data as well as emic conception of what is ethical (or at least acceptable) regarding the handling of their own data.
{"title":"Repurposing Digital Methods in a Post-API Research Environment: Methodological and Ethical Implications","authors":"Alessandro Caliandro","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.433","url":null,"abstract":"Especially after the social media curtailing brought about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it has become increasingly difficult to do social media research by using digital methods as well as following the medium . This condition brings in new methodological and ethical challenges. This article proposes some methodological strategies to ‘repurpose’ digital methods in a post-API research environment. The discussion draws on three case studies: 1) studying Instagram stories: the scraping dilemma; 2) studying smartphone in everyday contexts: researching digital environments not connected to APIs; 3) studying fake news on Twitter: dealing with increasingly useless APIs data. For each case study methodological and ethical implications are examined. In conclusion, the article suggests that a possible viable strategy to repurpose digital methods in a post-API era is to follow the natives (along with the medium ), that is, to take advantage of the natively digital methods through which social media users manage their own data as well as emic conception of what is ethical (or at least acceptable) regarding the handling of their own data.","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44497489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent years, the LGBT community has seen an exponential increase in the use of specific online dating apps ( e.g. Grindr and Wapa), designed to encourage meetings and affective or sexual exchanges, that have partially disrupted the traditional way of approaching studies on non-regulatory sexuality. Indeed, they changed the very meaning that some terms assumed in the past, such as “LGBT community” or “Rainbow Community” (Masullo, Gianola, 2017; Masullo, Coppola, 2020; Bacio, Peruzzi, 2017). This study aims to answer some research questions: how transgender people use the meeting apps ( e.g. Grindr, Wapa, Badoo); which dating apps are most used by T people and how these new “communicative and intersubjective spaces” influence, orient and determine the defining processes related to gender expressivity and sexual script construction; to what extent these channels constitute spaces to meet emotional and sexual needs; and whether these spaces reflect the same discriminatory dynamics that T people experience in offline reality. This research has shed light on how the ambivalence of dating apps for T people. On the one hand, they are places of emancipation; on the other, they perpetuate the exclusion mechanisms experienced offline. The choice of a platform is crucial from an identity point of view and it roughly reflects the perceived stage of the user’s transition process. The app is regarded as a place to find confirmation and recognition of their newly acquired identity.
{"title":"Scripts and Sexual Markets of Transgender People on Online Dating Apps: A Netnographic Study","authors":"Giuseppe Masullo, Maria Coppola","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.437","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.437","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, the LGBT community has seen an exponential increase in the use of specific online dating apps ( e.g. Grindr and Wapa), designed to encourage meetings and affective or sexual exchanges, that have partially disrupted the traditional way of approaching studies on non-regulatory sexuality. Indeed, they changed the very meaning that some terms assumed in the past, such as “LGBT community” or “Rainbow Community” (Masullo, Gianola, 2017; Masullo, Coppola, 2020; Bacio, Peruzzi, 2017). This study aims to answer some research questions: how transgender people use the meeting apps ( e.g. Grindr, Wapa, Badoo); which dating apps are most used by T people and how these new “communicative and intersubjective spaces” influence, orient and determine the defining processes related to gender expressivity and sexual script construction; to what extent these channels constitute spaces to meet emotional and sexual needs; and whether these spaces reflect the same discriminatory dynamics that T people experience in offline reality. This research has shed light on how the ambivalence of dating apps for T people. On the one hand, they are places of emancipation; on the other, they perpetuate the exclusion mechanisms experienced offline. The choice of a platform is crucial from an identity point of view and it roughly reflects the perceived stage of the user’s transition process. The app is regarded as a place to find confirmation and recognition of their newly acquired identity.","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"319-341"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49253656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The digital turn urges for a critical rethinking of social research in order to address the new epistemological and methodological challenges that come from the Digital Society. Digital methods offer a wide range of new possibilities, but they also have their own limitations and boundaries that social researchers need to experience in order to make the most of the online research methods. Also, the Pandemic posed new challenges that require an epochal rethinking of social research activities that have dominated the scene so far. Our paper aims at exploring these boundaries by applying a digital ethnographic approach to study an unconventional and rather unique research object: a controversial social practice, the so-called Dark Tourism during an unforeseen event, COVID-19 pandemic. Our case study starts from the analysis of Facebook groups born in the first Italian “red zones” and possibly eligible as places of potential digital dark tourism. Starting from a completely exploratory analysis, before formalizing substantive results on the investigated phenomenon, this paper brings to the attention of the reader a reflection of methodological order on the type of questions that can be answered by adopting digital methods approach and what limits are imposed to knowledge production and research work on which it is necessary to continue to reflect in order to more fully achieve understanding on the particular phenomenon proposed as a case study.
{"title":"Using Digital Methods to Shed Light on “Border Phenomena”: A Digital Ethnography of Dark Tourism Practices in Time of COVID-19","authors":"F. Addeo, Gabriella Punziano, G. Padricelli","doi":"10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13136/ISR.V11I4S.435","url":null,"abstract":"The digital turn urges for a critical rethinking of social research in order to address the new epistemological and methodological challenges that come from the Digital Society. Digital methods offer a wide range of new possibilities, but they also have their own limitations and boundaries that social researchers need to experience in order to make the most of the online research methods. Also, the Pandemic posed new challenges that require an epochal rethinking of social research activities that have dominated the scene so far. Our paper aims at exploring these boundaries by applying a digital ethnographic approach to study an unconventional and rather unique research object: a controversial social practice, the so-called Dark Tourism during an unforeseen event, COVID-19 pandemic. Our case study starts from the analysis of Facebook groups born in the first Italian “red zones” and possibly eligible as places of potential digital dark tourism. Starting from a completely exploratory analysis, before formalizing substantive results on the investigated phenomenon, this paper brings to the attention of the reader a reflection of methodological order on the type of questions that can be answered by adopting digital methods approach and what limits are imposed to knowledge production and research work on which it is necessary to continue to reflect in order to more fully achieve understanding on the particular phenomenon proposed as a case study.","PeriodicalId":38025,"journal":{"name":"Italian Sociological Review","volume":"11 1","pages":"269-291"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44443703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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